hellhouse | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: Carrie White & Peter Parker
WHAT: Arrival
WHERE: First floor dining room
WHEN: July 10
WARNING: TBD

The last thing that Carrie expects after the house caved in is to wake up, in her prom dress, no less, somehow miraculously clean of all the pig's blood and dry as though nothing bad had happened to begin with. At first, when she sees the boy with his head down across the table from her, Carrie thinks maybe it's just Tommy and they'd tired themselves out and fallen asleep at the table; maybe everything was just a real bad dream and none of it really happened.

It only takes a second to realize that there's no music and this isn't the gym. He's smaller than Tommy; he's not actually Tommy. And, maybe most damning, Carrie's back is still aching sharply where Momma had stabbed her.

This is real. She's dead. She got Sue out of the house safe and Carrie died in the rubble and now it's just a matter of time before Satan comes for her. Carrie was born a child of God, but she's pretty sure God doesn't love abominations. She's pretty sure God doesn't love mass murderers. Carrie is both of these things. She's not going to Heaven after everything she did. This is Hell, it's got to be.

Carrie pushes herself to her feet and looks down at the unsoiled dress. It makes her chin quiver and she wants to cry. Why did they have to be so mean? She hadn't even wanted to go to the stupid prom. She should've trusted her instincts and just stuck to her guns and said no; kept sayin' no. Tommy didn't wanna be there with her, why would he have? Momma had been right all along. They'd just wanted to laugh at her. They had always wanted to laugh at her.

Well, now they were havin' the last laugh. God probably took all of them into Heaven for being victims of her wrath and she's been banished like Lucifer. Being in this dress, a dress that she worked so hard to make perfect and beautiful only for it to be completely ruined on what should've been the happiest night of her life, is a good start to making her feel tortured. It's just a reminder of everything she'll never be, ever. She'll never be pretty. She'll never be loved. She'll never be normal.

Ignoring the boy entirely, assuming he's perhaps just a figment of her imagination or a manifestion of yet another temptation — one which Carrie is not going to give into this time, not even in Hell — she moves to a corner and kneels on the floor facing the wall, head bowed in prayer. Maybe that's not allowed here or maybe God won't hear her, but she has to try. Hurried whispers of prayer escape her until she startles at the sound of something moving and she whirls around to face the rest of the room again, shaking with the fear that only dying and going to Hell, she supposes, can instill in a person like her.

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Her grimace becomes more pronounced when he presses against the wound with a bit more pressure. Carrie knew he'd have to, but she hadn't really anticipated how much it would hurt when he did.

Carrie braces herself with one hand against the wall as if pushing back on it. "No," she replies without any specification. "Please be careful," she adds because whether he's pressing harder or not, it feels like he is and it's less a warning to him that he's hurting her and more of a pathetic pleading for him to be mindful of it in the hopes that he won't take it as a gleeful reason to double down. This is Hell, after all.

"Nobody brought us here, Peter, we're just here because this is what's next," she whispers only because she can't quite find her voice without the fear that it'll become a scream of agony.

"This is pretty deep," he says, feeling the wetness of her blood soaking through the napkin and warming his fingers. He glances around the creepy room. "We need to get out of here and get you to a doctor."

He swallows at her words, looking back at her. Her face is turned away from him, but he can see the rigidness of her shoulders. Her voice is quiet and eerie as it bounces off the wall she's facing.

"Carrie, we're not dead," Peter says, reaching out lightly to touch her shoulder in an attempt to get her to turn towards him. "And we're not going to die here. Whoever attacked you may still be here, but I'll find a way to get us out, okay?" He swallows. "I need to get another napkin."

He pulls away, dropping the napkin on the nearby table before reaching for another place setting. This time he doubles up and folds it into a square. As he does so, he glances around, looking for something he can use as a weapon. Without his webshooters or his advanced suit, he's at more of a disadvantage than normal.

If it'll make Peter feel better, Carrie is willing to indulge him enough to try to find a way out of Hell to stitch up her wound. It's not going to happen; they're waiting for judgment. She knows this. If it'll give him something to do other than pushing against her sore back, though, she's willing to let him try.

"She's not here," she says a little more snappishly than she means to. She looks horrified almost instantly at her tone and Carrie ducks her head to hide behind her still-damp hair. "If we're not dead, why are we here?" she asks, in spite of herself. What could possibly be the reason they could be here if this isn't what she thinks it is? She honestly can't conceive of any other possible reason.

"I know you don't like it, Peter, but it is what it is. I died. I know I did and I know where I belong after everything. I can't speak for you," she says, her voice lowering until the last words she adds are a whisper again, "God knows where I belong."

He reaches for grabbing up the knives and forks available, confident that he can throw them pretty hard if he needs go. He looks over at Carrie. "Who's not here?"

He hadn't expected it to be a woman who had attacked Carrie. That doesn't really change their predicament, but it seems unusual. He shakes his head. "I don't know," he answers honestly when she asks why they're there. He knows why he may be there, but not why Carrie might.

He moves back towards her, picking up the new napkin bandage and approaches her cautiously. At least now he can see her face more clearly, though it's clear from the look on it that she's convinced.

It's pretty clear that no one would think this is heaven. "Let's get out of here," he says softly, not wanting to push her too hard. He's half afraid if he does she'll resign herself to whatever this is, thinking it's hell.

Carrie ignores his question because Peter doesn't press it. He's more interested in getting her out of this place and if the attempt is what will make him feel better and give him something else to focus on so that she doesn't have to implicate her own mother in her death, then that's just as well and she'll let him.

"I gotta move slow," she warns, frowning. The more her adrenaline wears off, the more pain she's feeling not just from the stab wound, but from exerting herself so much in the gym — her head is throbbing — and from the house caving in right after she forced Sue Snell out.

With that warning out in the atmosphere, Carrie moves slowly to follow him toward the door. If it opens, she'll be surprised to learn that there's more to Hell than a poorly designed waiting room.

He slides the silverware into his pocket and moves to the door. It's locked, but he moves back and slams into it with his super strength. It creaks and he can feel it shift. He runs into it again and this time the door pops open.

He turns back towards Carrie, moving to help her. He reaches for her elbow to help steady her and maybe take some pressure off her shoulder. "I'm going to apply pressure again," he says, giving her a concerned glance. "We can go as slow as you need to."

At least until they ran into trouble.

Carrie watches, wincing a little when he throws himself against the locked door, because she's sure it won't open and he'll just hurt himself. It genuinely surprises her when he manages to get it to pop open. She stiffens a little by reflex when he comes to help her move because it still feels weird to trust him.

The sudden realization that he's been nothing but kind to her so far and that she's still afraid to believe that he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart even though she can't think of any possible ulterior motive enrages her. Not at him, but at Momma. At her classmates. At the world for giving her so many reasons not to trust that she's not even sure she can remember how.

But she nods when he tells her that he's going to apply pressure again and she lets him take her elbow and lets him lead her and actually even lets herself enjoy the fact that someone is showing her compassion in a way that actually feels real. She knows that this really must be Hell because no matter how hard she tries, she can't believe that it's sincere.

Once they're in the hall, Carrie looks behind them and realizes that she can't actually see the other end of the hall because it's so dark. That's alarming, but nowhere near as alarming as the fact that, when she turns to look forward again, she can't help noticing that the door they'd just come through...is gone. All she can see is solid wall. Carrie gasps. "Peter..." she says quietly to get his attention before looking back at the wall again. "...the door..."

He follows her gaze and blinks at the doorless wall that they just came through. Suddenly his conviction that they're not in Hell is shaken. Was this another trick? Another illusion? Was Carrie even real?

Maybe she was just meant to keep him busy. But he could feel her apprehension, her blood. If this was just an illusion given by drones than he wouldn't be able to trust his other senses.

He looks at her and then around them at the dark hallway. He can't see any other doors in immediate sight. Which forces them either up the stairs or down the hallway. He leads her down the hallway. They'll have to run into another door eventually. Plus, he's not sure how much exertion Carrie can take. "This way."

Her heart is racing. Is this the part where things start to look like Hell and feel like Hell? He doesn't see the door, either. Their options are to walk further down the hall and hope for the best or to head up a flight of stairs and somehow, Carrie thinks that the way out isn't going to be up or downstairs, but rather right on the ground floor. Then again, maybe this isn't the ground floor.

"I don't like this," she confesses quietly to him. It sounds childish in her own ears and she can't help hating herself a little when she hears it. She sounds like a scared little girl; like she had when she'd gotten out of the bathtub after the prom. She closed her eyes and shook her head as if to push away the thought. "What if we can't find the way out because something like that happens?" she asks.

Carrie still isn't convinced that there actually will be a way out, but even if there is, who's to say it'll show itself? They've been out of the dining room for a minute and they've barely moved, yet they've still lost the door leading into it.

"I don't either," he admits as they keep moving. He swallows as the hallway ends and forces them to choose left or right. "Sometimes aren't always what they seem." He reaches out to touch the wall and it's solid. He starts feeling across it like a blind person would. It's not an illusion.

He turns to look at Carrie. "We're going to have to keep going. There has to be a way out of here." He pauses and nods towards her shoulder. "Are you doing okay?"

Swallowing thickly, Carrie watches him as he reaches out to touch the wall, like maybe he's worried it isn't real and it's just another trick like the door. But his hand presses against something solid and she looks up through her eyelashes when he turns back to her, only because her head is dipped slightly downward out of reflex. Carrie has always found it incredibly difficult to look other people in the eye.

To his question, she nods, even though it's not true. Her back is aching with a dull throb punctuated with white-hot sharpness every few steps. She isn't going to tell him that. "But what if there's not and they're tricking us?" she presses, looking more crestfallen than concerned.

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